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Broomfield oil and gas air monitoring systems displayed, explained to public

Eighteen stations will be in place by early November

By Jennifer Rios

Staff Writer

Posted:
10/25/2018 02:21:06 PM MDT

Updated:
10/25/2018 02:21:37 PM MDT

Broomfield residents attended an open house Wednesday to learn more about the air monitoring systems that will be in place during oil and gas operations in the city. (Jennifer Rios / Enterprise Staff)

Broomfield residents got a glimpse of the air-monitoring stations and mobile plume tracker that will collect air samples near oil and gas drilling operations and develop baseline data that will be used locally and shared with other institutions for future research.

About 30 residents attended an air quality open house Wednesday, along with city and county staff and several city council members.

Representatives from Ajax Analytics, Colorado State University and Broomfield staff who work closely with oil and gas previewed the equipment that will go in the field. Ajax Analytics and CSU in August were awarded a $1.18 million contract by Broomfield to monitor air quality at oil and gas drilling sites.

Outside the George DiCiero City and County Building, Arsineh Hecobian, a research scientist at CSU and co-principal investigator on this project, answered questions from the public along with Dr. Jeff Collett, head of the CSU Department of Atmospheric Science.

"The Broomfield public is really educated," Hecobian said, "which is good because we like talking science."

Inside the lobby, Ajax representatives spoke to residents about the 18 monitoring stations that will be placed near operations. Each station is made up of a so-called Internet of Things network and an air sample canister, both of which were on display.

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Four stations currently are in the field, Bryan Terry, an environmental field technician with Ajax, said, and all should be in place by early November. Data is collected hourly, and a team will collect the canisters weekly and take them to the CSU lab to be analyzed and swapped with new canisters that will go back to the device. The canisters, he said, can test for up to 48 volatile organic compounds such as benzene.

Eighteen monitoring stations will be set up in Broomfield and Adams counties to sample air hourly as drilling operations ramp up. (Jennifer Rios / Enterprise Staff)

Hecobian said the plume tracker works independently of the 18 stations. It will be driven throughout Broomfield and nearby communities to learn about the area and discern sites that may emit methane such as a landfill in nearby Erie. It then will be deployed during drilling operations.

Additionally, if chemical levels appear elevated from regular readings at the 18 stations, the plume tracked will be deployed to the site.

Samples will be taken mostly during flowback operations, Hecobian said, since prior research has shown that typically is when the highest emissions occur.

The plume tracker vehicle has been used extensively in both theFront Range, as well as in Garfield County to track and measure air emission plumes from oil well sites.

Researchers will try to predict "optimal meteorological conditions" that will result in "stagnant events" where not a lot of wind would disperse the air to take their samples, she said. Researchers want to target those times for sampling to see what a worst-case scenario would be.

The initial contract with CSU and Ajax goes through the end of 2019 and could be annually renewed, for a total of four years, with the cost not exceeding $2.3 million. It also is proposed that revenues from oil and gas activities be used to fund air quality monitoring.

That money also includes the creation of a web page to report air quality monitoring results so the data can be viewed by residents. Residents can expect to see results posted as early as January.

The 18 monitors, which can be moved to different sites, will be used to produce reports that analyze each type of data in a comprehensive matter.

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